


Shadows

by liluye (mouselini)



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst and Porn, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition, reference to rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 00:12:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4982245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouselini/pseuds/liluye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to take place after Bent, but it can stand alone. I need to work on writing better smut.

The wooden door to the Estate creaked more than he thought it did, but Hawke shrugged and tried to make his entrance as quiet as possible because the sun wasn't due to rise for another few hours. The journey home had afforded him enough time to worry about everything he couldn't worry about before: namely that his dog had starved to death, that Bodahn had disappeared—leaving Sandal to starve to death, that Orana had met her first duplicitous suitor and somehow managed to starve to death, too.

One glance around the main room put those fears to rest. It was pristine as ever. Bodahn's chest of wares still lingered in the corner, and there was a stray wisp of _something_ emanating from Sandal's enchantment table that suggested he was in the middle of a mysterious, albeit exceptionally dangerous project.

Hawke set his staff against the wall and clipped off his lone metal glove, a flickering smile tugging his lips at the sight of his plump Mabari sleeping at the foot of the staircase.

He sauntered up to him, stomping hard, but the dog made no effort to lift his head.

“Ahem. Excuse me.”

There was a hollow sound of a nubbed tail beating against the floor, but Hawke frowned, his hand outstretched in expectation of a much warmer welcome than the one he received.

“ _Oh_ ,” he whispered sarcastically, retracting his hand and shaking his head at how quickly his Best Friend the Dog fell back to sleep. “Nice to see you too, Luke.”

Hawke cracked his neck from side to side as he stepped over the massive disappointment, breathing in the faint aroma of Orana's specialty—buttered chicken—as he ascended the steps to the quarter hall. It was a strange feeling, being home. Nothing changed but him.

As he cracked open the door to his room, however, his breath hitched and his final fear was lost in the flames simmering along the bottom of his fireplace. His vision skewed, drifting over black armor and the unmistakable hilt of a Blade of Mercy like they were the hazy remnants of a dream, until he finally managed to move from the doorway.

Hawke knelt next to the edge of the bed where Fenris lay curled and small, his hair clinging to his brow like a field of marred snow. Fenris always slept silently.

With a soft sigh, Hawke adjusted his weight onto one knee as he brought the other up to rest his bandaged arm, his armor clinking slightly with the movement, making his eyebrows knit. The _crack_ of Silverite was haunting in its most recent context, but he made no effort to remove his mail as he watched the rise of Fenris's shoulder with a creeping shiver of regret.

Yes, Fenris's scars ran too deep, but it wasn't like him to break holes into the linen with his fists.

“ _Ah, shit…_ ”

The remorse in Hawke's whisper was thick, so he cleared it from his throat, automatically lifting his hand to the curve of Fenris's cheek as if it were a flame. He stopped just shy of his skin with his fingers suspended in a cautious flex.

Fenris couldn’t be touched, that part Hawke knew. He’d be startled, angry, still fighting after all these years, still running from faceless ghosts. There were many mornings in which Hawke had found himself mending an astonishing black eye after kissing him too soon, and Hawke remembered with a vague chuckle the exact nosebleed that made him realize that a sleeping Fenris had to be treated like a very skittish, very reflexive cat.

In a momentary flash of red, Hawke also remembered the last time holes brindled his bed sheets like that. Those were bigger, more jagged, broken. Those were his.

Hawke lowered his hand and rested his chin on the mattress like his Mabari did every morning, gazing with building affection at the perfect bow of Fenris's slightly-parted lips. Moments passed but they could have been hours; all Hawke cared about was the steady quiet of Fenris's inhales, his exhales, the curve of his pout, the unfamiliar ferocity with which he gripped his pillow.

They'd fought tooth and nail up until the night Hawke left for Skyhold, bolting doors behind him while Fenris beat the shit out of furniture in the fire-lit shadows of his bedroom. Bodahn had said something to him as he flung his staff over his shoulder, shaking and gritting his teeth until they stung, but the last thing he heard was _we're still nothing, Hawke! We're—still—nothing!_ Loud, cracking like thunder, like the desk Fenris had mercilessly kicked against the wall.

It had stormed twice on the Waking Sea. Four sailors fell dead. Lightning split the Ferelden sky the way lyrium split Fenris's skin, and as the rain crashed fierce against the turbulent waves, he heard the ringing still.

 _We're nothing._ Crack. _I'm never coming back here._ Crack.

But they weren't nothing. They were never nothing. He curled the corner of his mouth in an inward sigh and tilted his head to the side.

“Pssswssswss...” Hawke whispered, high in pitch but low in volume, a calming, nonvocal beckon he'd often used when he needed to rouse Fenris from afar.

Fenris tightened his hold on the pillow, his jaw clenched and orange in the dim crackle of light. Hawke watched his small knuckles whiten with a thick swallow. _Crack._ He wiped his hands across the streak of red on his face before he whispered again,

“ _pssswssswssswssswss..._ ”

That always worked.

Fenris's eyes snapped open and locked onto his. They were bright with fear and almost golden in the fire light, beautifully deep and smoldering as they always were, but the circles that stood in dark contrast beneath them told Hawke of colder nights.

“Hey, you,” breathed Hawke, voice a rumbling warmth between them, clouded in caution and layers of uncertainty as the elf stared at him like he'd stare at death. Sickness rolled around in Hawke's stomach and threatened double him over, so he dropped his head against the edge of the bed to cough, suppressing gags, suppressing months of lonely fucking bloodstained fear.

Fenris's eyes widened beneath his hair and the terror Hawke initially saw in them morphed to disbelief. He sat up fast, his lips instantly pulling into an incredible fucking smile as his hands, bare save for a ribbon, jumped to cover his face. Hawke felt an answering tremor spill from him as he exhaled with a force of relief, and before either of them could find words, he fell forward, armor and all, into the lap of the elf he didn't know he could possibly miss more than he did while he was away.

“Fuck,” Hawke gasped, his senses torn by the trembles in the fabric between them. It smelled like home. “Oh, _fuck_...”

“Wh—” Fenris flung his fingers between his own mouth and Hawke's hair. Whatever he intended to say was lost as Hawke circled his arms around Fenris's waist and buried his face into the sheet-covered expanse of his elf's quivering abdomen.

They sat in shattering silence before Fenris went rigid.

“N-no,” Hawke hissed. He tightened his grip on Fenris's waist, panic mangling his throat with every sudden twist Fenris made to break free. When the exposed flesh of his neck snapped under the assualtof Fenris's nails, Hawke cried out in defeat. “No, please—c'mere,” he begged, clawing desperately at blankets as they fell like sand from his hands, “please, just come here...”

But Fenris tore himself away, backed up against the headboard. It slammed against the wall in the force of his weight. It shook when he drew his knees up to hide his eyes.

“Fenris, please,” Hawke hastily crawled onto the bed, throwing his gauntlets off to touch his elf's quivering arms, “don't do this to me, not now.”

“I c-can't stop.”

The tables turned toward him and Hawke froze dead. Fenris was crying.

It was silent, but Hawke's breath convulsed in his chest because in all the years he's known him he's never once seen him flinch. He slid his hand up Fenris's throat and cupped his jaw between two fingers, heart growing heavy as he forced the elf to look at him through the fire building tall in his wincing green eyes.

No, Hawke thought, gaze fixed to the glisten on the nostalgic curve of Fenris's cheekbones. No, the tables haven't turned. They've fucking splintered apart.

Hawke didn't wait to kiss him, and as he dragged his teeth over the soft surface of Fenris's bottom lip, he listened to the quickening rhythm of the blood in his own ears, fingers coiling cold into the mess of marred snow between their faces. Fenris's knees parted for him instantly. They always did.

Somewhere beneath the heat of Fenris's darting tongue was a sigh of “ _fuck_ ”, pained, desperate like the canines latching onto Hawke's lip and the tremble of fingers falling down Hawke's back, removing his armor piece by piece until all that remained was his blood-splashed leather tunic. Kissing Fenris felt like breathing smoke from a burning ship, and Hawke shuddered into his mouth because there was a time when he couldn't even keep his head above the water.

He pressed his weight into Fenris's small body, indenting him into the headboard as their fingers collided against each other, spaces between them filled with hair white and black, twisted and gripped too tight. Warmth curled around him when he saw the faint red hint of arousal in Fenris's cheeks, and he let Fenris pull back, let him catch his breath while he dropped his hands to his waistband and his tongue to a line of lyrium across his neck.

It took one bite for Hawke to find himself on his back with the slim silhouette of his heartbeat straddling his hips. He opened his mouth to let Fenris in, the pace of his tongue growing fierce as it licked a muted moan from Hawke's throat. He wanted to tell him how much he'd missed him, that he lived for him, that Fenris was the only thing worth fighting for anymore. He wanted to ask him to stay but every time he tried to move his elf would follow, lips searing and helplessly assaulting, so Hawke just panted, rutted up onto the thick line of Fenris's cock, dropped his magic-slicked fingers down the back of his pants until he had two in to the knuckles.

Fenris choked and shivered as Hawke moved him with every thrust, and Hawke loved him for the colors he saw when he heard him growl, “ _one more_.”

“Yeah?” Hawke whispered, slowly pulling his fingers out to their tips, hissing at the heated feeling of Fenris tightening around his nails, “you sure?”

“I want to fit you.”

With a strangled whine Hawke obliged, adding another finger as he leaned up a little to find Fenris's lips again. Fenris was weightless as always but his hands felt heavy against the sides of Hawke's face, and when his cock dipped out from his stretching pants and left a trail of precome on their shirts Hawke chanted his name like a prayer.

His face went cold as Fenris's hands disappeared to his belt buckle. Two struggling flicks, two moans before he was coaxed out with fingers made of fire, and Hawke pressed harder, curling into Fenris, using his splicing grip to fuck him down against his groin.

“T-take—”

The word tumbled from Fenris's lips like an arrow but Hawke was already palming oil onto himself, breaths coming in ragged gasps as he ripped his fingertips out from Fenris's cleft to spread him wide. He brought his thighs up as Fenris lowered himself down onto the swollen tip of his cock, squeezing his eyes shut at the tight resistance of his elf's warmth and the harrowing gash in the center of his own heart.

_Did you think you mattered, Hawke? Did you think anything you ever did mattered?_

Fenris tightened his arms around his neck.

_You couldn't even save your city. How could you expect to strike down a god?_

Fenris whimpered against his tongue.

_Fenris is going to die..._

Hawke gasped.

_Just like your family..._

He shuddered.

_And everyone you ever cared about._

He cracked his eyes open, blinking against the moisture lining the rim of his lashes, meeting Fenris's slow thrusts until he couldn't breathe as he watched the shadows laugh from their corners in the ceiling. Fenris was shivering on him, his skin stained with darkening nail marks and his lips dark and swollen. His lyrium pulsed with every raw hiss that left his teeth.

Hawke came with a cry, soft, cold, slamming up into his elf until he could feel his own come leak down his throbbing shaft, and Fenris broke too, his fingers twisting silent confessions into the leather of Hawke's worn collar.

They laid in fragments for long, breathless minutes, Hawke still pressing into Fenris's feathery weight as though it could stop the rain from ever falling again. When Fenris collapsed against his chest and growled “you will not leave me again”, Hawke began to shake.

“Fuck, Fenris, I need you something dreadful,” he plead, heavy, his hands hot with embers as they burned into the curve of Fenris's small shoulders, “I do, you know I do. I wouldn't have left if I didn't—I wouldn't have—I don't want you to die—”

But Fenris stilled, fingers caught in the short hair at the back of Hawke's neck as he hoisted himself up on his elbow. “Garrett, calm down. I'm not going to die.”

“But you are! _Maker's breath_ , you are...”

Another silence, but Hawke swore he heard the churning of a storm in the space between them, battered with gasps and the pale-white scent of burning honey. He drew Fenris back down onto him and let himself fall into the tides, into the green waves of the Kirkwall sunset.

“Amatus, what happened to you?”

“I just really love you,” Hawke whispered into the folds of Fenris's silken hair. In the distance, in the night, thunder could be heard over the Waking Sea. “Please let me have that.”


End file.
